The 1980s wasn’t particularly a great time for Stoke City and often it was pretty rubbish. But still some jewels somehow shone through the rough. In the last few days of 2017 we’re looking back on players who put a smile on our faces.

One was a Brazilian superstar, the other a tubby lad from Wigan Athletic ... but for Stoke fans, there is only one Zico.

Tony Kelly arrived with a mess of black hair in 1986 but the impression that he’d just wandered off the Boothen End and onto the pitch lasted only as long as it took him to start spraying defence-splitting passes.

However, ability alone wasn’t enough to satisfy Mick Mills, who quickly dropped him with an order to lose weight.

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“My weight did balloon up and down,” said Kelly. “It is my metabolism. They are all big lads in my family.

“I do wonder how I would have gone on in the modern game with dieticians and so on. We just had a manager, an assistant and a physio.”

He was restored to the side in late September – scoring a wonderful goal from a free-kick against Portsmouth in his first game back.

And he wasn’t just brilliant from a dead ball. His ability to drop a pass behind the full-backs was a blessing to wingers Tony Ford and Phill Heath, not to mention overlapping right-back Lee Dixon, who had arrived from Bury.

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Stoke City's heroes of the 1980s

He said: “Mick Mills signed Brian Talbot and he was brilliant for me and gave me more freedom in midfield.

“We were absolutely flying. Stoke had beaten Leeds 6-2 the previous season, so we did one better and beat them 7-2.

“I remember scoring from a free-kick, but it was at the away end and I decided to run back to the Boothen to celebrate.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t the quickest so I got overtaken and mobbed – well battered really – on the half-way line by Georgie Berry and Dixon. Peter Fox was also running out of his goal to body-slam me.”

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Stoke’s squad couldn’t cope with injuries and suspensions and fell six points short of the newly-introduced play-offs. Mills told Kelly he was surplus to requirements and sold him to West Brom for £60,000.

Kelly went on to become a firm favourite at Bolton, but first Shrewsbury, with whom he received a huge reception from the Boothen End when he returned as an opponent in 1990.

“I hope it doesn’t sound daft,” he said, “but it reminded me of seeing Queen doing Band Aid at Wembley. I couldn’t see any heads, just hands in the air.

“It meant so much to me. I remember sitting in the dressing rooms afterwards with the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I couldn’t speak for a good 10 minutes.”